Margaret Thatcher was Britains greatest leader since Churchill. Discuss.

[regexcellent]

Worth it because I can post links now. I'm actually a spambot for Wegmans.

http://www.wegmans.com/

I see now that you were referring to the Hong Kong being destroyed thing. The thrust of my point remains intact in the sense that HC's claims were not totally baseless, and were several steps above your ad hominem attacks.

[Aeson]

First mention of Obiwan was by Ewok, followed by this post by R2. Ewok's post was using Obiwan as evidence against holding King Kong, and R2 claimed that it is in fact evidence in favor of being able to hold King Kong. You are the one who cannot read, apparently.

This is how I originally read this response while scrolling through this mess of a thread. QFT

[Aeson]

Don't ask me why King Kong came up, but probably due to his resemblance to Chewy.

[regexcellent]

Aeson

[molly bloom]

I guess you could call TJHSST "special ed",

Is anyone except you meant to identify that acronym ? I'm not really that interested.

I see you are making good use of the thesaurus

No, I have a failry substantial and wide ranging lexicon. Roget's Thesaurus is on the shelf at home, next to Fowler's Modern Usage. You need to try harder if you want to attempt to condescend to me, especially in the field of English- language or literature.

but really, I don't give a **** how many words you know.

Imagine my utter surprise.

The statements you make with them are still stupid.

How terribly kind.

Not quite as stupid as imagining that somehow the United Kingdom would take on China over Hong Kong after two defence reviews (reducing the size of the British Army and the brigade of Gurkhas) and in the face of the unpalatable truth that the island of Hong Kong and the peninsula of Kowloon were not viable entities without the New Territories.

This is why, despite having ownership of the first two in perpetuity (the lease on the New Territories was for 99 years) the British wisely decided to do the sane thing and allow China to operate its policy of 'One Country, Two Systems', rather than engage in a pointless and unwillable conflict.

This policy, by the way, was also aimed at promoting reconciliation with Taiwan and was part of China's overall aim to obliterate the memory of the humiliations inflicted upon it in the 19th and 20th Centuries and to bring home to the motherland the statelets of Macao, Hong Kong and ultimately Taiwan.

This is also why China pursued a policy of reconciliation and greater trade links with Japan, despite the atrocities committed on Chinese soil by Japan's armies of occupation.


And before you

returneth to your folly as a dog returneth to his vomit

let me point out that no websites were consulted in the formulation of my reply.

[molly bloom]

We were lucky.

Especially considering that had the Junta delayed action, the defence cuts planned for U.K. forces would have severely hampered any chance of militarily taking back the Falklands.

On the other hand, the Argentinian conscript army was poorly trained, poorly led, and had appallingly low levels of morale, and they were much impressed by British discipline and the fact that British medical staff treated Argentinian wounded.

Still, if your major experience of war has been torturing civilians to death and/or dropping them into the South Atlantic or on rubbish heaps outside Buenos Aires, this is understandable.

[molly bloom]

I'm not.

Which branch of the American armed services are you in ?



Just so the Chinese know to avoid you.

[molly bloom]

They simply lack the research and development output of our military-industrial complex.

You sound awfully like the kind of person who believed in 'Star Wars' (not the film) and the Domino Theory. They have spies, they have hackers, they have lots of money and they are willing to work with or buy anything as part of the '4 Modernizations' .

There are now over 1 million Chinese in Africa, for instance, and China is more than happy to work with the likes of Mugabe's odious regime if it means getting its hands on Zimbabwe's mineral wealth.

Previously, China has been quite happy to expend large numbers of the PLA in the kind of human wave attack that saw them advance in the Korean Peninsula, despite technical superiority on the part of the U.N./U.S. forces.

The regime doesn't have the kind of squeamishness that afflicts Western regimes.

[molly bloom]

There was one in WSJ like two months ago. I'll find it and post it here in a bit.

You mean you're using the Internet to source information ?

How interesting.

It took you a while to see the blindingly obvious.

Given his lack of knowledge of Chinese history in the modern era and eager over-estimation of the ability of British forces to defend Hong Kong, this is quite understandable.

[Dauphin]

Is anyone except you meant to identify that acronym ? I'm not really that interested.

Thomas Jefferson something Science Technology or something-or-other. I only know because the attempt and failure at dick-waving about high school attendance has come up before.

[Hauldren Collider]

The attempt and failure at dickwaving was Alby trying to pretend that his education is comparable to mine. When a 27-year-old argues with a then-17-year-old about whose high school was better (mine, by the way), the 27 year old loses by default.

Oh yeah, to answer the question, although you apparently aren't interested, TJHSST is the high school rated as the best in the entire United States in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 by US News.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

My secondary school wasn't really a school at all. It was more like a warehouse for apathetic teachers and disgruntled students.

[Dauphin]

Oh yeah, to answer the question, although you apparently aren't interested, TJHSST is the high school rated as the best in the entire United States in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 by US News.

I was amused that given it's name, it wasn't top for maths and science.

[Hauldren Collider]

....yes it is...?

At least, by the rankings I've seen. Perhaps there's some ranking where it isn't quite #1. Regardless, it's very very good.

[Dauphin]

No doubt it is highly rated, but it's a rather small thing to be proud of. Personal achievement is far more relevant.

Someone posting a ranking before, and your school was 4th or something in maths and science.